JIM Slotek, QMI Agency

NEW YORK - 'Twas a few weeks before Christmas, 10 days since Kathryn Bigelow's last edit on the hunt-for-Bin-Laden movie Zero Dark Thirty. And she and collaborator Mark Boal were touchy.

Bigelow seemed reluctant to talk about being the first woman anything. It may be of interest that the first woman to win a directing Oscar didn't win it for a "women's movie," but for an Iraq War tale (The Hurt Locker), followed by a war-on-terror movie - testosterone-drenched subjects both. Bigelow isn't going there. "I look forward to when gender isn't an issue," she says.

As for Boal, his script, with shadowy input from CIA operatives, had already become an election issue. There were rumours of a CIA internal investigation of how he obtained his material. Had Boal been given improper access by a Hollywood-friendly Obama administration that had already used Bin Laden's death to political advantage?